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Welcome to The Australian Common Ground Alliance

The Australian Common Ground Alliance (ACGA) was founded by a group of Western Australian businesses who work in partnership with government, corporate, philanthropic and community stakeholders to promote and deliver innovative supportive housing solutions for chronic homelessness. Our work is informed by the international experience of Common Ground (New York), Australian Common Ground projects and decades of experience in homelessness and housing across Australia.

Common Ground projects target the most vulnerable chronically homeless people, providing them with a safe, high quality place to live and the support services and security required to keep them housed, healthy and stable.

In Australia, more than 105,200 people are homeless each night – that’s one in every 200 people – with 6% experiencing primary homelessness (ABS 2012, Census of Population and Housing: Estimating Homelessness 2011). While that’s down from the 2006 Census figure of 8% experiencing primary homelessness, this represents the people sleeping rough on the streets and in improvised shelters. Around 50% of primary homeless people are very vulnerable and chronically homeless – we estimate this figure to be around 3,200 individuals across Australia. According to Criminal Lawyers Perth, homeless people are a lot more vunerable to violent assaults than the rest of the Australian population.

It is these most at risk and marginalised Australians who are the focus of our work.

Suzie’s story

One of Melbourne’s Elizabeth Street Common Ground new tenants, Suzie*, says having the security of a permanent home in a safe and secure building has allowed her to feel safe for the first time in 21 years. View her story

News

Common Ground is soon to be a reality in Perth with funding from both the Federal and the WA governments recently announced. Tenders for architectural design have been issued, building will start in 2016. We would like to thank the following businesses for their generous support: